


give me a minute

by jilyss



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, F/M, Soulmate AU, time stop au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-25
Updated: 2019-01-25
Packaged: 2019-10-16 06:00:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,311
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17544065
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jilyss/pseuds/jilyss
Summary: 'the universe got tired of us dancing around our feelings so it stopped time until we figure this out' au





	give me a minute

The world falls silent on a Thursday. Lily doesn’t notice at first, caught up in her thoughts as she drove home from a busy day at work. It’s 5:16, peak rush hour time. When she hasn’t moved a meter in ten minutes, she glances at the lady in the car next to her. She’s staring blankly into space, unmoving and unblinking. Confused, Lily looks to her left. The man driving the black Subaru sits with a blank, bored expression, unmoving and unblinking. Lily jabs at her seatbelt and jumps out the car, heart pounding. 

The world is quiet. 

There are no horns honking, no cars running except for hers. She runs down the rows of cars, looking into each person’s eyes, yelling, shaking - nothing. No one even blinks.

She feels like throwing up. It couldn’t be more than a dream, but she picks up her phone. Dialing her roommate Mary, she taps her fingers on her steering wheel frantically. Apocalypse? There are no zombies, earthquakes, or robots, so that’s ruled out. Prank from one of her friends? How on earth would they convince an entire freeway of strangers to just freeze? 

Mary doesn’t answer. Neither does Sirius, Peter, Marlene, Remus, or Dorcas. She calls her boss, her ex, coworkers - nothing. Each ring seems to get longer and longer the more she calls. She goes down her list of contacts, one by one, desperately. Nothing happens until she gets to the J section. James Potter picks up on the second ring. “Hello?”

Lily is so relieved she can’t formulate a sentence for a moment. “Potter?”

“Yeah… hey, listen… are you…?

“Is everyone frozen? I mean -” They speak at the same time. They both stop awkwardly, and then Lily goes first. “Is everyone frozen? Just… staring off into space?”

“Yeah. Sirius is just sitting on the couch. I thought he was just taking the piss but everyone on the street is just... standing there.”

Lily doesn’t feel that same relief she felt a minute ago. She takes a shaky breath. “Is it just us that’s … awake?”

The line is quiet for a minute. “Seems like it,” he says finally. 

“It’s just a dream,” Lily finally says. She grips her steering wheel harder. “Just a dream. I’m going to walk home, and when I wake up, this will all be over.”

“Evans, I don’t think-”

“Forget we had this conversation, Potter. It’s just a dream.” Lily’s voice is firm, and she knows she’s grasping at straws. There can’t be another explanation. It’s all a dream - a nightmare, really. She’s going to wake up, at home, with Mary in the kitchen, dancing to the oldies station and Dorcas getting ready for work. Lily says goodbye to Potter and hangs up the phone. 

It’s a warm summer day. Lily is wearing black slacks, a blue sweater and a pair of brown heels. She climbs out of her car, grabs her bag from the trunk, and locks the car. She makes her way briskly down the freeway, up the exit ramp, and walks the mile and half home. 

As she slides her keys into her door, she checks the time again. It still reads 5:16. Either time has completely stopped, or she’s having a really, _really_ bad dream. Inside, Mary is sitting at the table, hunched over a bowl of cereal, and staring at a now dark phone. Lily tests her pulse. Nothing. Does that mean - is Mary dead? 

Lily checks her phone again. 5:16. Her heart hasn’t calmed down since she noticed the world had just stopped. Feeling a migraine coming on, Lily slips out of her shoes, flips off the lights, and collapses on her mattress, despite having no idea if it was actually time for bed. 

She wakes several times during the night, sitting up straight and gasping for air like she hadn’t breathed in years, reaching with one hand to her ceiling. She can tell that the sun had gone down because no light filtered through her curtains, but she doesn’t dare check the time, too afraid that she is still stuck in this nightmare. 

Lily awakes to James calling her. Blearily, she answers. The sun is starting to rise through the curtains, casting a pink light in her room.

“Sorry, did I wake you?”

“Yeah but… it’s alright. Did…” She pauses and looks at the time. It still says 5:16. It isn’t a nightmare. Time has actually stopped, and her and James Potter are the only people who were awake. 

“Evans, sorry but, I think… I think time actually stopped.” His voice is scratchy like he’d just woken up, and Lily swallows hard. 

“How come the sun went down then? Why are we -” her voice catches. “- why aren’t we stuck in time? Can we fix it?”

He interrupts her flow of questions quickly before they get out of hand like he knows they often do. 

“I dunno, Evans. But we’re gonna figure this out, okay? I’ll come over in an hour if that’s ok? We can walk around and see if anyone else isn’t stuck.”

Lily wants to laugh at his unknowing use of time but agrees instead and hangs up the phone. 

When he arrives sometime later, she’s dressed in basic shorts and a t-shirt. Mary is still sitting at the table, holding her spoon in her mouth. Lily had tried to move her to the couch into a more comfortable position, but it was like trying to move a stone statue. James knocks on the door, and Lily lets him into her small apartment. 

James and Lily had known each other since they went to the same university together four years ago. At first, they’d gotten off to a rocky start after a fight about one of Lily’s friends, Severus. When it became clear that James was right and Lily was wrong, they went almost a year without speaking to each other. A few years later, things finally simmered down and they had become somewhat of friends. Unfortunately, he was also rather fit. And tall. Not that it mattered now because they were stuck in a time loop with no idea how to fix it. 

They wander down the streets, weaving in and out of frozen people and stalled cars. James and Lily don’t speak much, still processing and just walk, heads down, hands shoved in pockets. The entire day is spent wandering the city, but not a soul in sight moved once.

“What if there’s someone else?” Lily finally asks. 

James glances at her momentarily but returned to looking at the ground. “You mean awake?” 

“Yeah. Why just us?”

“The universe has a funny way sometimes, I guess. Time stopped, but not us. And we don’t know how to fix it.” He shrugs, hands in pockets. Lily checks the time. 5:16. James crosses so that he’s walking next to her, dodging a frozen dog on a leash. He pulls her frozen phone gently from her hands. “Checking the time isn’t going to help.” He tucks the phone into his pocket. Lily starts to protest, always ready to argue with him, but considering the circumstances, James is probably right, so she closes her mouth and walks towards an ice cream shop. 

A week passes. On the third night since time had stopped, Lily wakes up from an awful dream, even worse than the nightmare she’s already stuck in, screaming out in the night. She calls James with shaking hands. “Can you come over?” 

Half an hour later, James stands in her bedroom, rolling out a sleeping bag on her floor. She watches him, unsure of what to say. She is still shaking, but his mere presence calms her down. “Thank you,” she finally whispers, voice hoarse. He crawls into the sleeping bag, and they are silent for a minute. Finally, he shifts so that his face is just below hers. “Nothing to it,” he murmurs. “It’s probably better this way, anyway.”

Two weeks pass, and then a third. James has all but moved in with her, each of them much more comfortable with another living presence in the house. When alone, Mary’s frozen form casts a somber mood, but it seems to be fractionally better when they’re together. They still don’t talk much. Lily spends her time reading books, watching movies, and studying for her master’s degree. James does a lot of the same, although often going for long runs to clear his mind. 

Hours blur into days, and then into weeks, and into months. Both of them have long lost track of what day it should be, 5:16 burning in their minds forever. They become more comfortable with each other. Lily shares her family problems with him, talking about Petunia and her mother’s constant criticism after they watch _the Pursuit of Happyness_. James talks about his parent’s death over a late-night bowl of ice cream, and together they help each other work through their problems. Sometimes Lily wonders if this is why the Universe had stopped. Did they just both need time to figure out their personal problems? But when they had grown so comfortable with each other that they had no more secrets between them, the time still read 5:16. 

One day, Lily wakes up and wanders into the kitchen. James is sitting on the counter, eating an apple lethargically, and Mary is ever frozen. In the past weeks, months - who even knew anymore, they certainly didn’t - they hadn’t ventured farther than the city, afraid of what they might find. They had become quiet, depressed, and hated every moment they were awake and their friends weren’t. Lily had no more Universe theories, no more ideas of how to fix the eternal 5:16. She blinks, once, twice, then turns, grabs her phone and tosses it out of the window. She can hear the phone crack as it hits the ground, and the 5:16 screen splinters. James turns to her, mouth open in surprise. “Lily?”

“Let’s go somewhere. We’re stuck here forever. Let’s travel.” And that was that. The roads are clogged with cars and buses, but they figure they can squeeze through with motorcycles. James borrows Sirius’, Lily ‘borrows’ one from a local shop, they pack a bag and travel the country. First came the Cliffs of Dover, Loch Ness, and Durdle Door. They spend days at each sight, watching sunrise and sunsets over and over again.

James finds an empty motorboat. “Have you ever sailed or gone boating before?” Lily asks as they stand watching the boat sway gently against the pier. He shakes his head. “Neither have I,” Lily says. She glances out towards the sea, eyes weary and dull. “It hasn’t rained once since time stopped,” James points out. “And we’ve seen every inch of England. We’ll be ok.”

Lily shrugs and tosses her pack in. What did they have to lose? 

They first travel across the English channel, and the waves are calm throughout the entire trip, no sign of bad weather. They see new things every day, not caring if they get lost in a small village, or sleep out in the open. Her feet are turning to thick calluses from all the walking where the motorcycles couldn’t fit through the small alleys, or when they decided to climb one of the Alps. 

At first, leaving London had been a good thing. They had transformed out of their lonely depression and were able to focus on the beautiful countryside, happy to be breathing fresh air. But as they traveled more and more, there wasn’t another soul in sight who was moving, and slowly the depression settles back in. Lily guesses that by the time they’ve reached Italy, it’s been nearly a year since time had stopped.

They’re sitting on a secluded gorgeous beach on the coast of Italy, alternating between splashing each other in the sparkling clear blue water and laying on the warm sand. They’d just collapsed on the sand again, sitting on a blue towel they’d found, letting the sun soak into their skin, still laughing. Unwittingly, her mind starts to wander back to when they had originally met. Of all the things they had talked about, they had never talked about why they had hated each other so much all those years ago. It seemed silly now, but Lily still wondered if he still held a grudge against her. “James?”

“Mm,” he says, head tilted back to watch the sky, eyes slowly closing. “Do you still hate me?” 

His eyes open wider and he turns to her. “You mean, like when we were in uni?” Lily nods, watching his reaction carefully. He shifts so he’s facing her better, his arms propped up behind him. She tries not to glance at his toned stomach. “Nah, not anymore. I mean - I definitely did. I thought you were the most amazing person ever, and you wouldn’t even give me the time of day because of what Snape told you. And then I tried to tell you I had seen him with the wrong crowd, but you just hated me for it.” He sits up and rubs his eyes. “I mean, I wouldn’t blame you either. I was an arse about the whole thing, especially when you finally saw who he really was. I should have just stayed out of it, but instead, I had to go get mixed up in it.”

“And then we fought.”

“And then we fought,” He repeated, half smirking. “But we still had to see each other all the time because of our friends.” They both sober slightly at the mentions of their friends, frozen and left-behind. “If time was stopped and all, I would probably still be upset with you. Not hate but upset.”

Lily nods. “I said some really awful things, and I don’t know if I ever apologized. I’m-” James interrupts quickly, running a hand through his hair. “No, don’t please. It was a long time ago, and we’ve both changed a lot. Let’s just -”

“- move on,” Lily finishes, wrapping her arms around her stomach tightly, the air suddenly colder. They fall quiet again, looking up at the sky. A tear slides down Lily’s cheek, and then suddenly she’s sobbing. James’ arms wrap quickly around her, pulling her in tightly. Her tears spill onto James’s skin, who strokes her back gently, humming gently into her ear. When she finally pulls back, he doesn’t say anything, letting her wipe her eyes on the sandy towel and look at the blue sky again. “I just want to go back to how things were,” she chokes out. “Where we have a future, with our friends, and I can finish my masters, and -” she breaks off again, slowly realizing something. If time had never stopped in the first place, she and James would have never become friends, never willing to talk to each other, never willing to forgive and forget, and never would have made any of the memories they had made. 

James pulls away ever so slightly, running a hand through his hair. “I don’t think I want to go back to normal,” he says hoarsely. A hole seems to open in her chest as she pictures returning to normal life without James. Although they hadn’t started on the best of terms, they had now stayed constant companions for the last year, trading jokes and stories, laughing at each other, and traveling the world. Somehow, she realized that she didn’t want to go back to normal if it meant she wasn’t with James. Lily nods, finally understanding what he meant. She relaxes, letting some semblance of acceptance wash over her. This is her life now, and if it meant she was with James for the rest of their lives, so be it. They were a two-piece puzzle, made to complete each other. 

They spend the rest of the day on the beach, watching the waves gently roll onto the shore, watching the sun sink into the ocean in an array of pinks and oranges. They fall asleep later in the night, nestled in sleeping bags on the sand, waking up the next morning to the rising sun. Once again, they roll up their sleeping bags, pack up their bags, and head off to their next destination. It feels the same as all the other days, except the atmosphere surrounding the two of them is different, although Lily can’t put a finger on it. She wonders if James feels the same thing, but doesn’t say anything as they find breakfast, leave a stack of bills, and climb back onto their motorcycles. 

They’re quieter today, speaking only when necessary as they wind their way through Italy. It’s almost sundown when Lily’s motorcycle breaks down. It starts giving off a lot of smoke, there’s a flash of light, and _bang_ \- the motorcycle sputters and dies. She pulls off to the side of the road and dumps it into a ditch, swearing bitterly. Her back hurts from a long day of riding, and the weird tension between them has been grating on her all day. James places a hand on her shoulder, meant to be calming, but instead, it just adds to her anxiety. “We can both fit on mine. I don’t know about you, but I want to see if we can find a hotel tonight.” Lily agrees, back aching after a month of sleeping on the ground, and James helps her pile her backpack onto his motorcycle. He climbs back on, and Lily slides in behind him, tentatively wrapping her arms around him. It wouldn’t have been weird normally because their friendship had a sort of casual intimacy, but Lily can’t stop her heart from beating just a little bit faster when she hugs him tightly. And she could swear James stiffened when she leaned her cheek against his back, but that was probably just the weird tension between them. 

James and Lily pull off to the side of the road when the sun goes down, not making it to a hotel. As he dismounts, James touches the small of her back lightly, and Lily ignores the small shivers that run up and down her spine. They roll out their sleeping bags, preparing themselves for another night at 5:16. 

It’s almost another week before they find a place with decent motorcycles. James tries to convince her that it’s faster if they just have one, but Lily doesn’t think she can handle spending the rest of time _that_ close to James. Her heart seems to beat faster and faster every time she climbs on behind him, and she needs Mary to explain to her why. Lily can almost pinpoint the feeling, but she hasn’t had much contact with many people in the past year and a half, and she can’t remember what it is. 

They end up at the Leaning Tower of Pisa, dodging frozen security guards and tourists to climb to the top. They watch the sun sink over the city of Pisa, and the transition of the stars and the moon slowly traveling across the sky. A cold breeze sweeps through, and Lily wraps herself tighter in a blanket, James leaning against her to stay warm. His breathing is deep next to her, and she rests her head on his shoulder. She finally feels relaxed and comfortable with James for the first time since their talk on the beach. “Evans?” James says, eyes still staring at the bright stars. 

“Hm?”

James shifts so he’s facing her better, and Lily lifts her head up. “I’m glad… I’m glad it was you I got stuck with.” 

Lily watches him carefully, and that uneasy feeling returns in full force. He leans back against the wall, relaxing as if he’d been holding that in all day. Lily decides to tease him a little bit. “More than Sirius? Or Remus or Peter?”

James gives her an odd look, but she’s looking up again and doesn’t notice. “Yeah. I just… I know I said it the other day but you’re bloody amazing Evans, and this time thing is miserable but… I wouldn’t trade it for anything.” His shoulders sag as he says this, hands running through his hair. He stands up suddenly, letting his blanket drop next to her, and Lily feels a rush of cold from where she was leaning against him. She watches his strong form for a minute, then joins him at the railing, wrapping her blanket tightly around herself. She looks out towards the city, streetlights twinkling slowly, frozen bodies spread across the lawn. Another breeze pushes her closer to James, and he wraps an arm around her again, stealing some of her warmth. She shivers at his touch and he laughs. 

They stay quiet for a long time, although neither of them can guess how long it really is. It’s always 5:16 anyway. Finally, James opens his mouth as if to say something, then shuts it with an audible click and turns away. “James, you know you can talk to me, right?” He nods, shutting his eyes tightly. Lily leans a little closer and suddenly realizes how close they are pressed together. Her eyes move slowly over him, tracing the lines of his face. A light stubble coated his face from a week without a proper hotel, and his eyes are dark, with golden flecks that seem to be glowing in the starlight. And then suddenly, Lily realizes what she had been feeling. The fluttery feeling in her stomach, the shivers running down her spine whenever they touch, the way she can’t help but watch James every chance she gets - 

Lily grabs his elbow, and before she can talk herself out of it, pulls James towards her and goes onto her tiptoes. She presses her lips against his, and just as she starts to think about all the reasons she shouldn’t have - like the fact that they were stuck at 5:16 forever and if this didn’t work out things would be incredibly awkward - James responds, sliding his arm to rest around her waist, and another slides up to the nape of her neck, curling his fingers in her long hair. He deepens the kiss, sliding his tongue along her bottom lip, and Lily nearly moans. She had almost two years to kiss James Potter, and she had held off until now? He laughs against her lips, and Lily pulls away momentarily for a breath. Her breath hitches as his fingers press harder against her back, pulling her flush to him. 

A burst of wind nearly pushes them over, and James takes a step back to balance himself. Lily steps with him, letting the blanket drop from her shoulders. She barely even notices the cold until another gust of wind pushes them sideways, washing her in goosebumps. Lily stumbles, caught off guard. James tries to catch her, but she falls backward as the wind picks up, pushing itself between them, forcing them farther and farther apart. Lily reaches out toward him, yelling, but the wind carries her voice away. The wind is swirling around them, fast and violent, whipping her hair into her eyes. Lily closes her eyes tightly, doing her best to hold onto the railing, blindly feeling for James. She hears him yell faintly to her right and then - 

She’s back in her car. Hands gripped tightly on the wheel, hair in disarray, and wearing her work clothes. Lily looks to her left. The man behind the wheel is singing along to the radio. Lily looks to her right. The woman is chatting on her mobile, laughing at something. Lily is still stuck in traffic, but they seemed to be actually moving now, inching along the freeway. Hands trembling, she reaches for her phone. James is calling her. 

“Hello?”

“Evans?” He sounds winded like he’d just run a mile. She can hear his smile in his voice as he talks. “Did you check the time?”

She pulls the mobile away from her ear, glancing at the time. 5:17. Lily gasps and starts dancing in her car, yelling in happiness. Time has started again. She checks it again. 5:18. She puts the mobile back to her ear and hears James laughing. Then she sobers. Did he remember? Was it just a dream to her? “James? You… remember, right?”

“Remember what?” He says, voice flat. Lily falters, panicking. She opens her mouth, dumbfounded, when James bursts out laughing. “Of course I remember! We went to _Europe_ for two bloody _years_.” Lily relaxes against her seat, yelling at James for giving her a heart attack. They fall quiet for a minute. 5:24, the clock reads.

“I’m stuck in traffic,” Lily says, biting her lip. Memories flash through her mind - laughing at James when he fell off the boat, eating macaroons in the Swiss Alps, flying through the German countryside on motorcycles, and most recently, kissing James. Time had started, but nothing had changed between them. “Give me a minute, and I’ll meet you?”

“Yeah,” his voice drops, becoming scratchy, and Lily has to focus on not crashing her car. “Yeah. Be my girlfriend Evans?”

“Moving a little fast, don’t you think?” Lily says slyly, but internally, she’s never felt so happy. “We just barely kissed.”

“Nah, we just spent two years together. We already know each other better than anyone else.” 

“Yeah,” Lily says softly. “It feels right.”

Later, they would wonder why the Universe had started time right when they had kissed. Later, they would wonder how they were transported from Italy to Europe in a split second. Later, they would wonder why the Universe stopped for them. Later, they would wonder how they would explain their sudden relationship to their friends. But for now, James and Lily were more than happy to return to normal life, together. 

**Author's Note:**

> please comments/kudos/feedback! this was so much fun to write and I plan to do more short fics instead of digging myself into a massive hole when I just keep writing lol


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